Let the cake baking begin: SusieCakes, the home-style bakery concept from California, will open a location in the East Dallas/Lakewood area at 6441 E. Mockingbird Ln., at the northeast corner of Abrams Road, right next to Olivella Pizza.

According to a release, the bakery will open on June 11.

SusieCakes makes cakes from scratch using high-end ingredients such as European-style butter and premium chocolate.

Their signature is their Vanilla Celebration Cake, flecked with colorful confetti-like speckles, plus cupcakes and frosted layer cakes in flavors such as Southern Red Velvet, 6-Layer Chocolate, and Tropical Coconut.

Their portfolio of traditional cookies and bars includes soft, chewy snickerdoodles, brownies, seven-layer bars and whoopie pies. They also feature rotating seasonal items include fruit pies and holiday treats such as pumpkin cupcakes with maple frosting.

The first SusieCakes debuted in 2006 in Los Angeles' Brentwood neighborhood from Susan Sarich, with her partner Houston Striggow. They've since expanded to include more than 20 locations throughout California.

Their only foray outside of the Golden State has been to Texas, yay us, where they debuted with a location in Dallas' Preston Center in March 2016.

They also have a location in Fort Worth which opened in 2017 at WestBend. (They had a stand at Legacy Hall, the food hall in Plano, which has since closed.)

The company closed its retail shops during the pandemic, but began reopening stores in early spring 2021.

The bakery will go into what was previously an Ebby Halliday real estate office, a space that's being broken into more than one storefront; Ebby Halliday relocated to another spot at Hillside Village.

They also recently launched national shipping for their two best-selling cakes, the Celebration Cake and Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake; order at susiecakes.com/national-menu/.

The bakery joins what is becoming an increasingly long list of food places at the East Dallas/Lakewood center including Olivella, Dream Cafe, Hillside Tavern, and Haystack Burgers, along with a Sprouts supermarket slated to open in the old Stein Mart space in 2022.

Striggow says they're extremely enthusiastic about the location.

"We wanted to open something in East Dallas, and we love that center - it was built in '50s, and is being upgraded, but they've kept the retro feel," he says. "There's so many young families with kids in the area, and great schools. We're in he celebration business, and that's our bedrock."

A grand opening party will take place on Saturday, June 11 from 12-3 pm, and will include children's activities such as a balloon artist, face painter, and coloring contest. A raffle for a year of cakes, a grab bag, and many samples will also be offered.